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Dear Manufacturers, We Need to Talk

Dear Manufacturers,

We have discovered a slight issue with your new sled offerings that needs to be addressed, and I am here to help walk you through it. Please head down to the design-team area of your complex and locate the group of young whippersnappers that work on colour and paint. They should be easy to find; they will be the ones with the jumbo 64-pack of Crayolas on their desk, 200 empty coffee cups littering the floor and no chairs—judging from the new sled colour options, these guys are too amped up on caffeine to sit down anyway.

The Polaris engineering team hard at work developing new ideas for 2018.

We need to tell these jitterbugs to take a breath and relax… hold their arms out to the sides, close their eyes and breath in, breathe out…nice and calm… maybe say “OHMMMM” – (I don’t know what this does but I saw it in a movie once). Now that they are calm, quickly take away their crayons. ALL of them. From this point forward, they get one little budget base pack of crayons to work with and each of you four manufacturers has to take from the same box—no sharing.

I realize that this is going to be hard and I don’t want you to fight so I am making the selections for each of the manufacturers, as follows:

Polaris

You can give your designers the red crayon back, and if they promise to behave and not go crazy they can also have the white one as well. That’s it. I understand that you used to be known as the boys in blue but Yamaha has kind of owned that colour of late, so you are relegated back to your tried and true roots of red and white. Don’t try getting tricky and mixing them, we don’t need a pink sled either.

Nothing says “Polaris” like a subtle splash of femininity.

Ski-doo

It’s almost embarrassing that you have to be told this, but reach in the box and pull out the yellow crayon for your guys. If you hear them complain about not getting enough choices, just give them a picture of a 1969 Olympique to colour. Anyone who colours it anything besides yellow gets fired. Keep repeating this until the remaining employees wise up and get it right. This is not negotiable.

Take one guess at how many color options were available for the 1969 Olympique? CC-BY-SA-3.0, YanikB

Yamaha

You guys have it easy. Take the blue crayon, that’s all you need. I don’t want to hear about the glory days of your yellow heritage in motocross racing or any other whining; you guys jumped on the blue wagon and made it your own, so stand up and be proud of it. If yellow was available we could possibly talk about history but it’s not, so get over it.

Sure, the Sno-Scoot is for kids. But the one classy-looking blue model probably would have sufficed.

Arctic Cat

No, we haven’t forgotten about you. I realize by this point the box of crayons is looking pretty empty and you’re going to complain that the others got to pick first but let me assure you, the order of choice has no bearing on your colour; you obviously get green. If you’re really feeling adventurous, go ahead and grab the orange crayon too, it only seems fair for picking last. If your young designers complain about the limited palette that they have been given, just remind them of your leopard print from the 70s—I am sure they will immediately agree that green is the way to go.

Look familiar, Arctic Cat owners from the 70s? Yep, it came in purple too.

I know these rules may seem strict to you but let’s face it, we have descended into complete polychromatic anarchy so the reprisal must be swift and strong. How are we supposed to know what brand is putting those awesome tracks way up in that chute if every sled looks like the back wall of a paintball testing facility? We need the brand knowledge to be able to brag to our buddies about what our sleds could do. You know, if my elbow wasn’t sore… or I had a new belt… or whatever excuse is used for not actually being up there.

On a somewhat related note, can we please reel in the guys doing sled wraps too? Back in the good old days they were called pinstripes and they followed body lines, but some of these wraps today look like the messy pile left behind by a dog that ate a bag of jelly beans. Not a pretty sight.

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